


eloquence

by threadoflife



Series: sherlock ficlets [16]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domestic Life at 221B Baker Street, Everyone will be happy, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, dust is eloquent, john is finally settled, post-s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9923780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threadoflife/pseuds/threadoflife
Summary: John wants to be gentle with Sherlock.He learns how to be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> copied straight from http://wssh-watson.tumblr.com/post/157665233697/wssh-watson-wssh-watson-there-was-a-moment-in...
> 
> i probably won't even be able to use a proper keyboard anymore with all this phone typing i'm doing.

There was a moment in the time before Sherlock left him that John realised it with a jolt: _I want to be gentle with him_.

Because it was not something John knew how to do, he turned to anger. It made him punch Sherlock a little more violently than was necessary before Irene Adler’s house.

*

Years later, John remembers this particular thought.

It’s five thirty in the morning of a spring day. Outside, rain is falling, a slow, steady pouring. The patter against the window is gentle, calming.

Through the dim morning light filtering in through the crack in the curtain, Sherlock’s face is pale. Sleeping, the lines in his forehead are smoothened while the crinkle around his eyes and the lines around his mouth are emphasised. John gazes at him, the backs of his fingers trailing carefully over the beginnings of grey at this temple.

A gentleness overcomes John, swelling until it pushes heat into his throat and his palms tingle with it. _All I ever wanted,_ he thinks suddenly, _from the moment I met you–besides punching you and bathing in your light and loudness–was to be gentle with you. God, I wanted to hold you close and gentle you. Like an untamed beautiful beast, so spooked and wild. That’s all I wanted. It took me years to realise._

The dust exposed in the streak of light from the window dances like stars in the bedroom, above Sherlock’s face. The scene is ordinary, by now. Sherlock sleeping, close to John, sharing their mornings. Above them, in John’s old bedroom, sleeps a five year old girl John thinks of as Sherlock’s despite biological impossibility. In twenty-five minutes, he will get up and make eggs and bacon in the kitchen. Ten minutes later, Sherlock will turn on the kettle and kiss his cheek good morning before climbing–with bare feet–up the stairs to wake their girl. Then the three of them will have breakfast.

It’s routine. It’s ordinary. There have been dozens upon dozens of these mornings. Rinse, repeat. Morning, work, dinner, their daughter. Maybe a shag before bed. Definitely kisses.

So ordinary. Boring, by all means.

Years ago, John would have run, or choked on it.

Now, he watches the dust dance above Sherlock’s face: so like stars, as if they were in possession of a private universe here inside this bedroom.

Dust is eloquent, Sherlock always says. Boring, bothersome dust, a nuisance–eloquent.

And it is.

Because here John is, and he can lean down and kiss the corner of Sherlock’s mouth on a morning in spring in London, like so many other boring, blessed mornings before.

Here John is, and he can be gentle. He knows how to be, now.

There is no more anger or violence, just a steady, warm love between them like the dust: everywhere, suffusing, ordinary, settled; dancing like stars in a weak light, illuminating a dreary, rainy day.

Dancing like stars.

John will never run from again. He will only run to.

Looking away, and looking to. He’s only looking to real things, now, and running to them.


End file.
